26 replies to this topic

[JopieK]

tedbeard, on 20 September 2012 - 03:50 AM, said:

That's the problem. It would just be too expensive. Of course it is technically possible but the whole reason they abandoned monorail in the first place is that did not sell, in part because it was too expensive for consumers to buy.

If you are willing to pay insane amounts of money then you can make anything. However LEGO is not in this to lose money which is what would happen if they tried to sell a limited run of sets based on 3D printing.

Indeed this technology is still too new and not applicable yet, especially at the high standards that LEGO has for its molds. I mean a breadbox is way more tolerant than a LEGO brick of course, that is why we love LEGO and hate (most) other brands.

[AndyC]

I doubt it was the tracks, per se, that were the expensive part of the monorail system. TLG could probably produce the ramps, curves and straights without much difficulty. The problem comes from all the more complex constructed parts like the motor assembly, the start/stop track and the automatic points. All of those are going to be costly to produce and they're all also very much single-use pieces. A modern re-make of the monorail system would probably to sacrifice those capabilities in favour of PF control more like standard trains and also reduce the number of required track pieces where possible.

It would probably also have to be released in place of standard trains, rather than alongside them, which I suspect might put more people off than otherwise.

Done well and without worrying about compatibility with the past version, I think it could work well (or at least as successfully as trains in general). Although I do wonder if just making ramp pieces compatible with existing trains might not work just as well - I know as a kid the Futuron monorail's appeal was as much in that sort of "3D" aspect as it was anything else.